I use the term restorative wellness practices as a concept associated with life application strategies and procedures that increase or return wellness to individuals or groups, some of whom have lost or never experienced this due to a lack of opportunities and resources. At the college, where I teach dance, fitness, and health courses, it has…

New mothers returning to academic studies face many barriers. One of these barriers -- the continuation of breastfeeding -- can be particularly challenging. Breastfeeding is integral to the health of both mother and infant, underscoring several important tenants of the Catholic ethos; however, the literature indicates a significant number of…

Obesity rates, mental illnesses, and emotional health and well being pose a significant problem for today's youth. Family and community involvement have been shown to improve school readiness, academic achievement, and graduation rates. The Whole School Whole Community Whole Child (WSCC) is a ten-component model designed to work synergistically to…

Digital marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and adolescents is pervasive, highly effective, undermines healthy eating, and contributes to health inequities. Expanded use of electronic devices and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the urgency for policy interventions to limit digital food marketing in…

Coordinated School Health (CSH) is a framework for addressing health in schools, connects health with learning, and improves students' health and capacity to learn through the support of schools, families, and communities working together. This model encourages healthy lifestyles, provides needed support to students, and helps to reduce the…

Why save wilderness? Environmental educators usually offer ecosystemic and aesthetic reasons, yet clearly this abstract approach has failed to resonate with the wider public. In this article I adopt a nutritional strategy based on a broad array of sources. Wild plant food, in terms of economics, ubiquity, and other measures, performs very well…

The transition to parenting (Galinsky, 1987) can be a tumultuous time, particularly when parents have experienced traumatic and stressful life circumstances. Interventions to help these parents often focus on the first 2 years after birth because of the importance of this sensitive period for babies' developing brains. However, we describe…

Obesity has been increasing in all age groups worldwide for the past several decades. Yet for hundreds of years before the last quarter of the 20th century, obesity was not an issue. The etiology and the cure for the obesity epidemic have been elusive. Weight reduction diets and behavior therapy have not produced the desired results. Perhaps…

"Promoting Student Achievement through Improved Health Policy" is a quick primer of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] CDC's "Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child" model, which highlights 10 important areas for connecting health and learning: health education; physical education and physical activity;…

Many global settings lack indigenous measures of child development, making the adaptation of available instruments necessary. The aim of this study was to reliably adapt the core subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III (WPPSI-III) to assess cognitive abilities in young children in rural Pakistan. A systematic…

Access to affordable fresh food is an ongoing challenge for underserved urban neighborhoods across the United States. Several are designated food deserts with no access to a full-service grocery store within a one-mile radius. The Urban Food Hubs of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) of the…

The School Health Policies and Practices Study (SHPPS) is a national survey periodically conducted to assess school health policies and practices at the state, district, school, and classroom levels. SHPPS 2016 assessed the characteristics of selected components of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model: (1) health education; (2)…

Students at Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC) are determined to utilize their education to help combat the looming climate change crisis and the effects it will have on their Fort Belknap community. Children at ANC's White Clay Immersion School have built their own weather station and created an Aaniiin language book on climate change for elementary…

Recently, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has called for proposals on the "greening" of the Spanish curriculum for their 2020 convention. University students are and will be faced with complex twenty-first-century economic problems, such as food deserts, costs of industrial agriculture, organic regulations and market demand,…

The Coordinated School Health (CSH) report describes how the CSH program was implemented at AISD elementary campuses. The report provides summary information about achieved CSH action goals, changes in the percentage of students meeting healthy fitness criteria, and program implementation ratings.